


Ghost

by stormae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 8 cups of fluff, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, F/M, a dollop of angst, can you tell i'm new at this, mature themes????, not about pottery, not even about ghost, not halloween related, that tag should have gone at the start, there ya go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 13:16:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10697769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormae/pseuds/stormae
Summary: With vast sums of money and a dubious method of acquisition came certain dangers. Your father grew to worry about your safety, insisting on your protection. Enter; ghosts.





	Ghost

The water of the swimming pool was a brilliant artificial blue, illuminated in the dark night by the lights beneath the surface. For the first time that summer, you felt refreshed. Perhaps even more than that.

It was a peculiar feeling of liberation and enthralment that coursed through your body. You cast a quick glance over your shoulder at the house behind you. It was a monstrous sight, huge and imposing, with panels of concrete and walls of glass. It was like a fishbowl, so that anybody on the outside had a perfect view of the overflow of wealth the house contained. The architect had assured your father the design was avant-garde, and your father always had to have the latest and greatest thing.

On this particular summer evening, your parents were throwing a party of sorts.

The house was filled with people, all dressed for the occasion, sipping Dom Perignon and talking business they most likely knew very little about.

The ball was a sort of celebration your father threw every year, in lieu of his birthday. It was a marking of yet another year he’d managed to survive without getting mysteriously decapitated by an unknown enemy, of which he had plenty.

Whenever you would inquire as to how he had earned such an eye-watering amount of wealth, he would flash you a benevolent smile and simply tell you he ‘moved money’. You were always left perplexed as to what that could possibly mean, but the way he avoided the question with a harmless smile and cold eyes had you dismissing your curiosity every time.

With vast sums of money and a dubious method of acquisition came certain dangers. Your father grew to worry about your safety, insisting on your protection. Enter; ghosts.

Not fiendish ghouls or impish poltergeists, although you might prefer those over the reality. The ghosts your father insisted on were Undercover Protection Officers, or bodyguards sans uniform.

They were almost always gargantuan in size, with a square, shaved head, tiny, angry eyes and muscles piled on top of one another until you struggled to avert your gaze, the inhuman size of their arms and legs demanding your attention. It was like a car accident, horrible but impossible to look away from.

They were always uncomfortably serious, as well. Robotic in movement, tone and sense of humour, you quickly tired of each guard. You’d been turning over one every two or three months for coming up to three years now, and you had been growing very tired of it. Initially, you made a game out of what it would take to make them quit, but most of the time you had to admit defeat and put in a request to your father to try another.

“One with a personality, this time,” you’d grumble.

“I’m not paying them to amuse you,” your father would shoot back irritably, effectively silencing you bratty whines.

But when you weren’t really allowed off the sprawling property and the person was contractually required to stay by your side every waking hour of the day, you had to make your own fun.

And that brought you back to the present moment, teetering around the expansive pool in your strappy black heels that were crippling your feet, a mischievous smile adorned on your perfectly made-up face, throwing looks towards the house you’d just escaped from and mentally counting the seconds in your head.

A minute and fifty-two, a minute and fifty-three, a minute and fifty-four—

Through the sliding glass doors that opened onto the sandstone staircase that lead down to the pool burst a slim, suited figure, eyes narrowed on you.

An involuntary giggle slipped from your lips as you rapidly discarded your heels, flinging them across the sandstone as you hurried to the end of the rectangular body of water, opposite to the figure you were currently evading.

He watched you closely as you taunted him with a derisive grin. Your fingers curled in the material of your wine-red gown of crushed velvet, the heavy material dragging along the ground behind you due to your heel-less height. You extended a pointed toe, dipping it in the illuminated water, feeling the refreshing sensation of the liquid cooling your skin. Although the sun had long set, the air was still sticky with warmth.

Your revelling in the blissful cool was cute short as the suit-clad figure broke into a jog, rounding the pool towards you.

You let out a tiny squeak, retracting your foot and hoisting the skirt of your dress, dashing in the opposite direction.

But your clothing choice weighed you down, and your athletic skills were far inferior when compared to your competition.

The sound of the soles of your chaser’s dress shoes slapping against the sandstone tiles came closer and closer, causing your heart-rate to spike in giddy excitement, releasing a spurt of enthusiastic energy within you. You tried to jump the right angle corner of the pool in a sort of short cut in your rush of competitive thrill, the decision proving not one of your best.

One foot only made half it’s way onto the edge of the pool, off-balancing you and threatening to send you backwards into the pool in a dress that would sink you instantaneously.

Before you could meet with the perilous water, however, an arm curved around you waist and yanked you safely onto the side on the pool.

You turned a sheepish grin up at your saviour. “Thanks.”

“Y/N,” Taeyong addressed you in an admonishing tone, “how many times have I told you not to run around the pool in those god damn dresses.”

You wriggled from his grasp, taking a few steps back and sweeping the skirt back and forth.

“Sorry, mum.”

You glowered at his miffed form for a moment, before the pair of you lapsed into giggles.

“How long did it take me, this time?”

“Just under two minutes,” you told him.

When your father had called you downstairs a month and a half ago to introduce you to your new ghost, you had almost fallen over in shock.

“This is Taeyong. You’ll be in his care from now on.”

As opposed to the bulky blockhead bodyguards you were normally stuck with, the young man’s silhouette was lithe and not too much taller than yourself. That was the other thing, he was young. The others’ ages had averaged in their late 40s, where the new guard couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than you.

That would have been enough to give you hope that he would be more entertaining than the others, but his face discouraged you.

His hair was like dark smoke atop his head, large eyes of an equal shade. His features were sharp and angular, with straight eyebrows to match, creating a severe impression that had you deducing from his cold facade that he wasn’t going to be much fun, after all.

You had almost immediately commenced your process of driving the bodyguard away, doing everything in your power to make his job as difficult as possible. You’d give him the slip as often as possible, hiding away for extended periods of time until he was forced to explain to your parents why you were nowhere to be seen.

When he was around, you made no effort to engage with him, choosing instead to immerse yourself in a book or browse the internet with headphones firmly over your ears.

Every now and then you’d steal glances at his countenance when he, too, took up a book to pass the time. He was undeniably attractive, facial features sculpted perfectly enough to warrant a marble bust and eyes guarded and dark enough to convey something almost enigmatic. His hair looked soft from where you were, flopping into his eyes as he titled his head this way and that.

But the severity in his gaze unnerved you, perturbing you from striking up any semblance of a conversation.

But almost a week and a half after he had arrived, your parents had thrown a gala that required you to don an expensive dress and show your face for at least the first half hour.

Taeyong, who you’d only ever seen wear a suit, looked much the usual. The only noticeable difference was the way he had loosely combed his hair away from his face, giving you an even better look at the precision of his nose and cheekbones and jawline.

It was that evening that marked the first time he initiated any sort of conversation with you. Up to that point, he had been stoic in his silence, only speaking when spoken to, and even then quite often opting for a nod or a shake of the head instead of implementing his deep, smooth voice.

“You look lovely,” he told you as you emerged from your bedroom to meet him, his face still devoid of emotion.

You’d mumbled a thanks, unsure where the praise had come from or what you were meant to say.

He stayed by your side for that first thirty minutes, never saying a word and practically invisible to the high-brow guests you were attempting to converse with. He kept you supplied with champagne and maintained a vigilant eye as you went about your duties as your father’s daughter.

But after the initial half-hour, he’d pressed fingers, cool from the condensation of the glass he’d passed you, to your elbow, capturing your attention as he lent in to talk into your ear.

His voice was low as he proposed, “What do you say we make this a little more interesting?”

You’d raised an eyebrow at him, signalling he should continue.

“How fast do you reckon I can catch you if you try to hide away from me in the party?” He challenged, the face still serious but something glinting in his eyes that enticed you more than you cared to admit.

“Like hide and seek?”

He nodded, “Yeah.”

For a moment you considered throwing the offer of friendship back in his face to spite him, reprimanding him for not fulfilling his duties seriously. But that was not like you, and instead you found the nearest platter-toting waiter to burden with your half-empty flute and, sending Taeyong conspicuous look, you slipped off into the crowd of people, hoping he would give you a generous head start.

You had discarded your heels in the foyer, slipping out into the front garden to hide amidst the carefully manicured hedges. The house itself was colossal, let alone the property in its entirety, so you had faith your hiding position would suffice.

You counted the time that elapsed in your head, passing three minutes and feeling sanguine in a win. You had a track record of hiding from him that fuelled your confidence.

Your eyes remained trained on the front door to the house, waiting for Taeyong’s frustrated form to spill through the doors in vain pursuit. What you didn’t expect was to feel a hand on your shoulder, eliciting from you a shocked scream that had you clutching a hand to your chest.

You spun to come face to face with Taeyong, but it was not the fact he found you that had your heart hammering in your chest. It was the way his nose was scrunched and his eyes were squinted shut and his mouth was open, revealing rows of pearly white teeth as peels of laughter escaped his lips.

“How long did it take me?” He’d asked after he’d recovered from his bout of irrepressible laughter at your shocked expression.

“Just over three minutes.”

He’d pouted his pale pink lips, furrowing his dark brows in thought. “I bet I can do better than that in the future.”

You’d extended a hand for a shake to seal the deal, “You’re on.”

That night had been almost two months ago, and the pair of you had grown close over the period since. Just like that first night and the present evening, he had never failed to find you. You suspected the first week where you’d managed to avoid him had been influenced by his own desire to leave you be.

But the suave, serious guard had transformed rapidly into a mixture of a concerned mother and overprotective boyfriend, your days filled with banterous exchanges and hours simply spent in each other’s company, as was the nature of Taeyong’s job. You liked to believe that your relationship extended beyond the confines of his contract, though, into genuine care.

The water beside you was a luminous, brilliant aquamarine, the colour induced by the lights lining the walls of the pool.

Unlike that first gala, Taeyong’s hair was as it always was, parted to the side with a fringe brushing his eyes. He looked celestial with the light of the pool bouncing of the sharp plains of his face.

“We should head back in,” he said, walking around you to retrieve your heels where you’d flung them to the side. He wandered back, crouching down in front of you and sweeping the claret velvet from your legs to reveal your bare feet. You placed a hand delicately on his shoulder for balance as you raised one foot, then the other as he situated your shoes in their rightful place. The feeling of his fingers on the smooth skin of your ankle was overwhelmingly intimate.

It was routine for him to retrieve your shoes, as was the whole escapade at parties, but it never failed to make a blush blossom on the apples of your cheeks. He did it without being asked, thoughtlessly making your life easier with every opportunity he had.

He flashed you a smile and extended an elbow, wordlessly escorting you back to the party that was still happening inside. In years gone by you would have dreaded returning to the grasps of the people you were meant to recognise but didn’t, but the warmth of Taeyong’s body beside yours dispelled any fears you may have had of tedium.

—

You were still wearing your pyjamas—an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants—as the hands on the clock crept towards midday. Your elbows were propped against the cool marble counter top, your chin resting in your palm as you watched Taeyong move around on the opposite side of the kitchen island.

He rarely wore a suit anymore, something you had to convince him was ok but in the end you could tell he felt much more comfortable. His top half was covered in a dark purple sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over his head. His legs were clad in dark blue denim, the rubber Adidas slides on his feet squeaking against the polished floor as he moved to and from the stove.

He had dragged you from your bed a couple of hours ago, claiming you had to make use of at least half of the day. Your protests had fallen on deaf ears, and the promise of a hot breakfast had gotten you the rest of the way out of bed.

The first time you had tried to cook for Taeyong when you’d noticed he’d been feeling under the weather had ended in disaster. You’d never had to cook for yourself, your parents neglecting to teach you amidst ballet and violin and swimming lessons.

When you’d placed the charred eggs in front of him, face ablaze, totally aware that your skills were deficient, you had been floored when he scooped the eggs into his mouth.

“What are you doing?” You had stammered, eyes wide as he swallowed and took another mouthful. “They’re awful. I didn’t want you to actually eat them. I just wanted you to see that I gave it a go.”

He’d glanced up at your expression, taking in your confusion, before shoving your face away. “They do suck, but you put effort into it. I’ll cook, from now on, though.”

Breakfast was a sacred time for you, now, although it was probably more appropriate to classify it as a very late brunch. You adored watching him move around the kitchen, deft hands creating delicious meals that had you starting off your day on a positive note. His lithe frame was elegant in every move he made, each flick of the wrist or roll of the shoulder looking fluid and melodious. You always found yourself remarking silently that he would be a brilliant dancer.

You were brought back to the present by the sound of china on marble as Taeyong set the plate down in front of you.

“Are you sleeping with your eyes open, again?” He asked suspiciously, poking a finger at your forehead with gentle force. You swiped at his hand, picking up your knife and fork and jabbing at him playfully.

“No, I was just thinking.”

“That’s even scarier.”

You glowered at him as you shoved forkfuls of goodness into your mouth, watching him grab a serving of his own and lean his hips against the counter, eating standing up.

There was a few moments of silence, before Taeyong spoke again.

“Have you done your chores from yesterday?”

You scoffed, hiding the sound in another mouthful of bacon. Taeyong shot you a reprimanding look.

“You won’t get your allowance from your parents if you don’t do them.”

“You sound more like my mother than my actually mother,” another mouthful, “why do my parents make me do chores, anyway?”

Taeyong gave you the same irked expression he always wore when you said something particularly bratty. “Because that’s how kids earn pocket money, princess.”

You scowled at him, more seriously this time. “You know I hate it when you call me princess.”

“I call it as I see it, Y/N,” he met you with an equally serious look. This was not totally uncommon, the pair of you somewhat clashing heads when it came to your self-entitled attitude and his lack of patience for it. He acknowledged it was a product of you upbringing—if you grow up in a palace you’re going to act like a princess—but that didn’t mean he let it slide.

“Take the trash out once you’re done with your food,” he told you, his words clipped as he washed up his own dishes.

You set down your cutlery and wound your fingers together, settling your chin on them, “Ok. Where would you like to go?”

“Y/N, for fuck’s sake,” he heaved a sigh, but the curve to his lips that he was trying to smother signalled to you that his irritation was fading as quickly as it had arisen.

He leaned across the counter and flashed you a tight lipped smile, “Gee, you’re lovely. And by lovely, of course I mean gross. And mean.”

“People don’t dislike you because you’re ugly. I mean you are incredibly ugly, but that’s not why people dislike you.”

Taeyong didn’t say anything in reply, and for a moment you triumphantly thought that you had won. The sense of victory escaped you rapidly as Taeyong rounded the counter, coming to stand behind you and settling his hands on your shoulders. The skin of his fingers was rough against your neck, goosebumps rising along your arms as he dipped his head to settle his lips next to your ear.

“I touch myself when I think about you,” he murmured, causing your heart rate to spike, your pulse physically pounding in your neck.

You could feel the flush in your cheeks as you tried to wriggle from his hold, but just like the rest of him, his fingers were slim but surprisingly strong, holding you in place.

“Taeyong, wh—”

“More specifically,” he interrupted you, still breathing into your ear in a sultry, smooth voice, “I rub my temples, because I get a headache. You’re awful.”

With that, he released his hold on you, stepping out of your personal space and shooting you a successful grin. He leaned around you to pick up your plate, the casual, harmless proximity still causing you to inch away from him, your ears burning. He chuckled at your reaction, the only other noise being the rushing sound of water against the plate.

“Go and take out the rubbish,” he told you, watching in amusement as you scrambled from the stool and scampered from the kitchen, tail tucked. He felt a twinge of guilt at having shaken you so badly, but after all, you had started it.

—

Clearly, you were not trusted.

Your slippered feet shuffled along the cold tiles of your home, the sound echoing against the walls of the long corridor. You had company. The sound of rubber squealed in time with the woosh of your own steps.

You paused. The other footsteps halted as well.

You swung around, narrowing your eyes at your shadow.

“Are you seriously following me to the bathroom?”

Taeyong tucked his arms across his chest, giving you his best patronising expression, “You bet I am.”

“Why?”

“You think I’m going to let you go by yourself after last time?”

You rolled you eyes, shuffling your left foot at the memory. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Taeyong moved closer, infringing on your personal space and looming over you. “Oh really? I distinctly remember last Tuesday evening, when you escaped through the bathroom window of the building the gala was held at, climbed the fire escape and made me chase you up to the rooftop, in the process managing to twist your ankle. For a laugh. Because you were bored. Yes, I’m following you to the bathroom.”

That did sound familiar. “You have to admit, the party was a drag. And both of us are fine, now!”

He narrowed his eyes at your bashful smile. “Nope. You’ve lost your peeing privileges.”

You kicked your foot in his direction, flicking your slipper in the air in his direction. As he tried to catch it, you discarded the other shoe and took off running down the hallway. You heard muffle curses and the tell-tale squeaking of his pursuit, the feeling of his fingertips brushing your back as he tried to grab you sending you into a delirious giggling fit.

Taeyong didn’t need to worry, you had no plans of escaping out the window. Running through the halls of the house you had spent so much of your life wishing for freedom and something to do, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d truly been bored.

—

You were not proud of yourself.

The haste with which you had scrambled from your bed to reach your phone when you had heard mysterious thumping sounds in the house would rival that of an Olympic sprinter—certainly the fastest you’d moved in a long time. The sounds of the intruder were varied and skittish, adding to your agitation

Taeyong was on speed dial (for obvious reasons), and you hadn’t even glanced at the time before slamming your finger against the screen and pressing your phone to your ear, impatiently waiting for the sounds of ringing to be replaced by Taeyong’s voice.

It was his day off, a rare fortnightly event, during which you nearly had to physically throw him from your house to actually get him to go home. You would tell him that you needed at least twenty-four hours reprieve from seeing his face, wording it as a favour he was doing you to put his constantly fretting mind at ease.

But in that moment, you didn’t feel a single flicker of remorse from dragging him back to your side, desperate to have him close to calm your heart that was thrashing with fear.

It had gotten to the point where you couldn’t remember what the house had been like with him there, how you’d filled your days without his presence. He was a constant in you existence that put you at ease.

When he burst in the front door no more than fifteen minutes after your call, panic in his eyes and a heaving chest, you could do no more than cast him a sheepish look from where you were paused at the bottom of the staircase.

He didn’t seem to notice your contrite expression, rushing towards you and clasping your face between his hands. His large, ebony eyes searched your face, brows knitted together in concern as he checked you for harm.

“There’s an intruder? What are you doing down here?” He asked, gaze leaving you to survey the foyer, the moon casting cool-toned shadows across the pale marble floor.

You took his hands and removed them from your cheeks, stepping away and waving an indicative finger in the direction of where your big, fluffy white cat was perched near the top of the staircase, eyeing Taeyong carefully.

“It was just Marble.”

Taeyong stared at the cat for a moment, the tension escaping from his shoulders and a sigh billowing from his lungs as he took in the supposed fluffy culprit. He sank into a squat on the floor, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his hands.

You couldn’t bring yourself to do anything other than remain rooted where you stood, wringing your hands together as you waited for him to turn his face up to you. Would he yell, or would he lower his tone until it was dark and menacing and unnerved you to the very core? Silence would be worst.

After maybe a minute or two, Taeyong stood up once more and turned to you. You felt his stony eyes slide over your abashed form.

“So you called me at two in the morning on my day off, and I rushed over here, breaking at least eight-hundred road rules, because you heard your cat go bump in the night?” He clarified, voice dispassionate. You winced slightly, lifting your shoulders in a noncommittal shrug, the facts already running repeatedly through your mind.

You felt a hand on top of your head, ruffling your already mussed hair, causing you to snap your head up in shock.

Taeyong was giving you a zephyr-like smile, the look in his eyes far softer than you imagined it would be.

You ducked away from his hand, the guilt like a boa constrictor, wrapping itself around your lungs and squeezing. The kindness Taeyong was showing you was undeserved, and only made the snake more determined to suffocate you in your own selfishness.

The worst part was the fact the entire situation wasn’t even that uncommon. You do something stupid to put him out, he did more than his job required of him, catered to your every whim, and did so with a tender expression and without complaint. You didn’t deserve it, not with how overindulged you acted, not with how you frequently forgot to thank him, not with how you took him for granted every day. You couldn’t imagine your life without him, he was the closest you’d ever been to another person, and you feared one day he’d get jack of all your antics and walk out on you, just as you’d made so many ghosts do before him.

His mellow expression morphed quickly back into concern as he watched your brow crease and your eyes dampen.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?” He asked, trying to move towards you again, but every step he took, you took your own away from him. He released a frustrated noise from the back of his throat, lunging forwards and grabbing your wrist gently between his fingers.

“Y/N,” he demanded in a firm tone, “what is it?”

“Why aren’t you mad?” The words spilled from your lips before you could choose the most correct, the most tactful.

Taeyong just blinked for a moment, tilting his head to the side. “What? You want me to be angry?”

“No,” you told him, “but I don’t know why you aren’t.”

He fell silent again, staring, perplexed, at you. “Y/N, I’m really sorry, it might be the fact it’s the middle of the night, but I’m really not following what you’re saying.”

“Just go home,” you finally said in a quiet voice, “get some rest. Please. You can take tomorrow off as well.”

Taeyong’s bafflement intensified. “Go home? Day off? What are you talking about? I might as well stay now—”

“Go home, Taeyong,” your voice was miserable, and you were sure you sounded even more spoiled than he already thought you were, but his doe eyes were only making your desire to wallow in your own self-pity strengthen.

Before he could say anything more, you hefted your fat cat into your arms and retreated up the staircase, leaving Taeyong alone in the grand foyer, a ghost surrounded by shadows.

 

The morning that followed didn’t have you feeling any better. The very thought of spending more time with Taeyong made you sick to your stomach. Over the course of your sleepless night, you had thoroughly convinced yourself that the more you saw Taeyong, the more he would grow to find you tedious and resent you. Thus, you had deduced the best thing to do was avoid him at all costs. You know, the brave option.

Later that afternoon you had received a text message from Taeyong you knew was coming.

Why did the head of security text me saying I have a week off?

What’s going on?

Y/N?

Is this about why you were upset last night?

You contemplated ignoring the messages—the easiest route out of the situation—but you didn’t have the heart.

DW, you sent back, just take the week off.

Catch up on sleep!

You put your phone on do not disturb and left it on the opposite side of your room praying you could take your own advice and sleep, hopefully finding an escape from your fretful thoughts.

—

You did not find much reprieve over the rest of the week. Your will to avoid making things worse meant you let your phone battery die, the charge-less device left to gather five days worth of dusk on your desk.

Taeyong still had two more days of forced break, meaning that the cocktail party being held at your house that evening was the first in over six months you would be attending without him by your side.

You were clothed in a guipure lace dress of rich burgundy, the decorative material climbed high up your neck and the skirt fell just past the top of your thighs, a black crepe slip contrasting against the colour underneath. Your legs were bare and cold, but your mother had informed you that pants were not appropriate for the evening.

The first half hour passed uneventfully, filled with small talk about how you had been since you’d last seen insert friend of parent here and what you were planning to do in the future (‘Take over your father’s business, right?’ insert uncomfortable wink here).

You disappeared out onto the patio as quickly as possible, making your way to the bar and asking for something that was predominantly vodka.

The barman gave you a dubious look. He had already served you several glasses of champagne, and you’d undoubtably taken more from the waiters weaving their way amongst the people.

But you were steadfast in your desire for the poison, and thus the barman reluctantly mixed you the strong drink.

An insufficient amount of time passed before you were back at the bar, slurring your request for another.

The conflicted expression on the poor bartender’s face gave way to open relief as he laid eyes on someone behind you.

An unfamiliar hand came to your waist to steady you, and a voice from behind, “It’s fine, I’ll take her.”

You peered up at the person holding you, his face swimming slightly as your vision wobbled for a moment, but you thought you recognised him as the son of one of your dad’s clients. Jongin? Jongdae?

He steered you towards the large sandstone steps, unable to prevent you from snagging one more flute of shimmering gold liquid from a passing waiter in the process. You descended towards the pool, your sluggish thoughts wondering why you were moving away from the party.

“What do you want?” You managed, having to focus a considerable amount of your mental capacity on staying upright and not falling off your stupid heels.

“Just to have a chat,” the man said, guiding you off to the side until you were mostly out of view of anyone peering down the steps.

His words confused you more. “What about? I don’t know you very well, do I?”

“It’s ok, you won’t remember much of anything after this,” he said, lifting something in his forefingers and thumb. It was hard to make out in the dark light, but it looked like a needle? A syringe? Panic flooded your system in that moment, bubbling up your throat as you prepared to scream.

Before your mouth could relay the noise your mind was demanding, the hand at your waist disappeared, as did the man in front of you. There were the sounds of flesh making impact with flesh and pained grunts, before the mystery man was in a crumpled heap on the floor and a new, far more familiar figure was standing before you, chest rising and falling as he sought to catch his breath. 

Several of your father’s guards emerged from the staircase, exchanging quick, muffled words with the newcomer before hoisting the unconscious man from the floor and towing him back up the steps.

As the men disappeared from sight, the elegant figure before you smothered you in a hug. “Y/N, you’re ok, right? He didn’t do anything?”

You struggled to shake your head with Taeyong’s hand holding the back of it, pressing your face to his chest. You breathed in the familiar scent of the expensive cologne he wore to these sort of functions and felt your mind calm and your head clear. Five days had felt like eons, a fact you only realised when you were returned to the embrace you had missed.

The feeling of one hand stroking your hair and the other rubbing circles on your back rid yourself of the gripping fear you’d been so overwhelmed by moments before, but your heart continued to hammer against your ribs with annoying persistence.

“You’re freezing,” Taeyong grumbled, sliding his hands down your exposed arms to your hands, twisting his fingers between yours briefly before detaching himself to remove his suit jacket. He slung it around your shoulders without another word, tugging it on you until you were shrouded in the fabric, the residual warmth from his body banishing the chill.

He looked just as ethereal as he had all those months ago, with the light of the pool reflecting onto his smooth skin, making him look like a living, breathing artwork.

You did notice slight dark circles under his eyes, though, causing a concerned crease to form between your brows.

Before you could open your mouth and say anything, your lips were occupied with Taeyong’s own.

He had ducked his head so quickly you had missed the motion, but the sensation of his lips on yours was filled with warmth, the languid movements coaxing your mouth to move against his.

One of his hands found your waist, tugging you closer to his chest, as the other cradled your face, holding you against him with desperation you did not know he was capable of. He needn’t fear, though. You’d been waiting for this for a long time.

Your hands came up to card through his soft, smokey black hair, eliciting a sigh from his lungs as he melted closer to you.

His lips parted from yours, kissing a trail along to your ear. He gently took the lobe between his teeth, inducing a bout of shivers up and down your spine that had nothing to do with the cold. He removed his lips from you completely, hanging by your ear.

“Please don’t tell me to leave like you did last time,” he whispered in a breathy voice, “you didn’t let me explain. I never get mad at you because I can’t. I love you, Y/N. I could never be mad at you for needing me. So please don’t tell me to leave.”

You used your hands still wound in his hair to tug his face back to yours, pressing your forehead to his own and brushing yours noses gently against one another. You were grateful for the distress of minutes prior, the panic effectively sobering you up, so you could pick the correct words to answer him.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” you assured him, desperately refraining from discarding the words you should say and continuing to kiss him, “I need you too much. It was hard enough asking the first time, I wouldn’t be able to do it again.”

He pressed a chaste kiss to your lips, a smile fighting its way onto his countenance. “I love you,” he whispered again, “I love you a lot.”

And you loved him. He was the best friend you’d ever had, and the only person you’d ever cared about more than yourself and your own selfishness. You wanted to be selfish when it came to Taeyong, though. You wanted him to be forever by your side.

The breeze picked up, shooting icy daggers into your exposed legs.

Taeyong put marginally more space between you two, wrapping his hand around yours. “We should get back inside before you get too cold,” he said, tugging you towards the steps with a blissful smile you were sure was reflected on your own face.

You had missed the chance to tell him you loved him, but you weren’t too concerned. From now on, there would be plenty of chances every day to let him know.


End file.
